Keynote/Fireside Chat: Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World

Adam Grant, Wharton Professor, New York Times columnist, and author of New York Times bestseller "Originals," shares compelling stories and research about how those who don’t fit the mold are often the ones to break it. In conversation with Marty Muller, SVP/Global Creative, The Walt Disney Company. Sponsored by The Walt Disney Company.

We’re all unique little snowflakes. Our ideas? Infallible. Our concepts? Money. But are they ORIGINAL? Most likely not. According to Adam Grant, originality is the process of thinking, doing, trying and failing over and over again. Now you may say, “What are you talking about? I’m a creative! I OOZE originality AND creativity!” Hold on, I’m getting to that part.

CREATIVITY IS OVERRATED

Grant made it very clear that it’s not just a creative idea that ensures originality, but the initiative to do something about it. To illustrate his point, he showed us an X-Y axis chart comparing the works of early classical music composers by popularity and proliferation. Iconic composers like Bach and Mozart weren’t necessarily the most original composers of their time, they just wrote several hundred pieces more than their peers.

So, what does it take to be a Beethoven of your own right? You have to be bad and you have to be bad often.

ORIGINALS HAVE MORE BAD IDEAS THAN GOOD

According to Grant, the best path to variety is sheer volume. How much volume? Evidence suggests you’ll need about two hundred ideas before you stumble onto a truly original idea. No one wants to be THAT person presenting a just-hatched-a-minute-ago idea, but it happens.

It also happens to be believed that if you’re a man presenting an “a-ha moment”, it is a flash of brilliance. Whereas if you’re a woman, that same “a-ha moment” is considered a half-baked attempt. It’s these side-eye inducing instances that can lead women to feel their ideas will always be evaluated due to gender as opposed to quality.

Women creatives have a serious communication gap; it’s like a thigh gap, but men are much less obsessed over it. (#AllGapsMatter) But before you think too long on that, let’s play a game.

ORIGINALS MAKE THE UNFAMILIAR FAMILIAR

Grab the closest thing with ears, put your hands together and clap the melody of a song that you love. Did you totally nail it? Nah. It probably sounded like staccato applause. Much like how it sounded when Grant asked hundreds of us to perform this exercise.

But he proved a very potent point: When you make a suggestion or bring an idea, you have to make it familiar. Your co-worker, spouse or cat didn’t interpret your claps as “Hotline Bling” because they’re not IN your head. They don’t hear Drake’s smooth tenor, only you do.

Consider that the next time you’re trying to convey your amazingly awesome idea--not only do you hear it and sing it in your head, but YOU wrote the melody! The burden of an Original is to make your ideas palpable to others.

ASANTE SANA SQUASHED BANANA

Grant went on to tell us the story of how Disney’s The Lion King was pitched. It nearly didn’t get made. Round after round, the creatives at Disney tried to get the concept through, but executives struggled with the idea of an animated power struggle accentuated with regicide and levirate marriage.

Then someone said: “Basically, it’s Hamlet with lions,” and boom... we have the best thing that could have ever happened with Elton John and some lions.

But what if the pitch for The Lion King was like an advertising pitch? It’s easy to imagine it would have died because they just couldn’t get it.

ORIGINALS CHOOSE THE RIGHT AUDIENCE

Most times, you only have that one meeting, that one internal, that one review with the client to make sure that idea gets absorbed in their skin. Since most people only register a new idea if they’re exposed to it 10-20 times, that can be problematic. This is advertising and ain’t nobody got time for that, so your best bet is to share your creative juice with the right audience.

By finding the right ally, women creatives can have a hope in preventing the senseless killing of ideas.

ORIGINALS GIVE AND TAKE

Grant broke down the four different kinds of GIVERS and TAKERS we’re likely to encounter when seeking the right audience. It’s essential to catch the ear of a giver than a taker—but it’s not as straightforward as you might expect:

• AGREEABLE GIVERS [The Ned Flanders] – cheerful and pleasant, but only because they can’t stand conflict. Not a constructive feedback bone in their bodies.
• AGREEABLE TAKERS [The Stewie Griffins] — no-share , idea-appropriation zone. They are fakes with petroleum jelly on their smiles.
• DISAGREEABLE TAKERS [The Emperor Palpatines] — a black hole personified. They literally get more joy out of an argument than actual conversation.
• DISAGREEABLE GIVERS [The Dr. Houses] —think of this one as a bad user interface, with a great operating system. Usually a very credible advocate because they’re so critical.

ORIGINALS PUT IN THE WORK

Adam Grant’s message to me is that originality is not bestowed, it is earned. If you listen closely to what we tell ourselves and each other, it reads like a fortune that came from an apathy cookie: “There’s nothing new under the sun”, “Everything has already been done”, “History repeats itself”. What’s the deal?

How can a culture that champions originality be so… emo? I think it gets back to work. Three concepts aren’t enough. Seven ways in falls short. Fifteen executions won’t cut it. Think, ideate, conceptualize, and do it some more.

You have to have a lot of brain-babies to determine which of them is the black sheep of the lot. And then when you’re ready to present that 202nd idea that is the bastion of originality-- communicate it to a supportive, yet spikey ally who will roll through the woes with you.

You’ve got this. I know this. How? Because you’re a unique little snowflake.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Originality is doing Simone Biles-level mental gymnastics (and falling) until you stick the landing.
• The most original thinkers are geniuses at being frequent, consistent and prolific.
• In striving to communicate an original idea, you have to make it incredibly familiar.
• Channel your inner Ri-Ri and workworkworkworkworkwork at becoming an idea machine.